Storage battery separator



Dec. 25, 1951 w H. LEHMBERG 2,579,589

STORAGE BATTERY SEPARATOR Filed Feb. 25, 1947 INVENTOR.

Patented Dec. 25, 1951 STORAGE BATTERY SEPARATOR William H. Lehmberg, Riverside, Conn., assignor to American Felt Company, Boston, Mass., a corporation of Massachusetts Application February 25, 1947, Serial No. 730,799 1Claim. (Cl. 136-146) 1 This invention comprises a new and improved storage battery and includes within its scope a novel separator and process of making the same. The requirements for a satisfactory separator production eificiency. I have discovered that pressed sheets or continuous length of fiat pressed separator material may be advantageously corrugated by passin the fiat pressed stock between to be used between the plates of a storage battery 5 male and female grooved rolls which engage the are very exacting. The material of the separastock at different peripheral speeds at the point tor must first be an insulator. It must also be of contact and so generate sufiicient heat to porous to a high degree, possess a considerable soften the thermoplastic fibre of the separator degree of mechanical strength, and have constock. It is therefore molded into the configurasiderable stifiness without being brittle. It must tion of the forming rolls and maintained perbe free from impurities, such as iron and manmanently in corrugated shape by the stiffness ganese, and preferably of such a character that of the molded binder fibres. it can be shipped and stored in dry condition. Preferably and as herein shown, the corrugat- The separator of my invention answers all ing'process is carried out by employing a series these requirements and possesses in addition the of rolls containing a progressively increasing unique characteristic of maintaining its electrical number of corrugations, that is to say, the first resistance and porosity in battery service by the set of rolls may be shaped to form only the center gradual carbonization and disintegration of cercorrugations, and each subsequent set of rolls tain components which offset-the plugging eifect may form an additional number of corrugations of the deposition of metallic salts on the sepaapproaching the edge of the stock until the full rator. width corrugation is obtained at the exit pair of Going more into detail, the separator 01' my rolls. invention comprises a felt material containing These and other features of the invention will 5-50% thermoplastic binder fibres and 95-50% be best understood and appreciated from the non-binder fibres unified by coalescence of the following description of a preferred corrugated binder fibres into sheet form and maintained battery separator and the manner of producing thereby in stifl resilient condition. For use in the same as illustrated in the accompanying the ordniary lead plate storage battery, the sepadrawings in which: rator will contain 95-50% fine vegetable fibre Fig. 1 is a plan view showing a strip of separasuch as cotton, which will be progressively oxitor stock in passage through three sets of cordized and disintegrated by the sulfuric acid '01 rugating rolls, the battery, thus increasing its porosity and oti- Fig. 2 is a correspondi g view in elevation. and setting the lead sulphate which is deposited Fig. 3 is a fra mentary V w in p p v 1 thereon. e a portion of the finished separator.

when the separator is intended for use in a n r t stock of t improved s p storage battery of the iron or cadmium plate type rator is based on that disclosed in Boeddinghaus where an alkali is used as, the electrolyte, the Patents Nos. 2,364,616 and 2,298,274. Forpurseparator will contain 95-50% wool fibre. Wool poses of illustration it may be assumed that the fibres will resist disintegration in sulfuric acid composition of he o k is o be thermor but are disintegrated by an alkaline solution, and plastic Vinyon fibre and 65% India cotton. These by this disintegration increase the porosity of the fibres are first blended in a conventional raw separator as a whole and thus compensate for stock picker to open up the fibre and obtain the plugging effect of iron or cadmium salts demaximum random distribution or mixing. The p sited thereon. blended and picked fibre is now carded by con- In another aspect the invention comprises an 5 ventional methods and fed to a continuous apron improved process of making separators of the in either straight web or cross web construction. type above disclosed having parallel corruga- The carded batt is built up to the desired weight. tions formed therein. Although it is possible to for example, 28 oz. per square yard. It is then platen press and corrugate in a single operation cut into sheets for further processing. the separators of my invention, there are certain The cut sheets of carded batt are then introdisadvantages inherent to this procedure, such duced into a fiat platen press between cloth or as mold costs, diiilculty in removing pressed canvas sheets and pressed at a temperature of sheets from a corrugated platen, and distortion 280-310 F. to a. finished thickness of approxioi the corrugations unless a heating and coolmately 0.058". It is sometimes desirable prior in: cycle is employed which results in loss of to pressing to treat the carded batt with a resin emulsion, for example, an emulsion of vinyl copolymers or polystyrene. This treatment is useful where it is desired to obtain a maximum interflbrillar bonding under a minimum amount of pressure. Under these conditions the finished product will be of low unit density and high porosity as distinguished from stock made without the use of additional binders for which greater pressure is required to effect equivalent bonding of the thermoplastic fibres. The amount of such emulsion used will ordinarily effect only a partial coating of the fibres without any plugging or filling of the voids between them.

If it is desired to corrugate the separator stock, the fiat pressed sheet In, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, may be advanced upon a table II and passed between three co-operating sets of corrugating rolls. The first set comprises the rolls I2 and I! having five centrally located corrugations. The second set of rolls l4 and I5 includes five corresponding corrugations and four additional corrugations. The third set of rolls I8 and l! are corrugated throughout their entire length. In passing through the first set of rolls,

five parallel longitudinal corrugations l8 are formed in the stock with a spacing of approximately /4" between them and a slight contraction in the width of the stock will be noted. The second set of rolls provides four additional corrugations with further contraction of the width of the stock, and finally the rolls 5 and I1 produce the fully corrugated stock IS with another slight contraction in overall width.

It will be understood that if both rolls of each pair are driven at the same speed and are of the same diameter, the surface speed of the rolls will be identical. However, since the rolls are in effect grooved and ribbed, the peripheral speeds of the rolls at the point of contact with the separator stock differ so that a frictional slip is developed generating suflicient heat to soften and form the thermoplastic fibre in the stock. It

may in some cases be desirable to increase the.

amount of heat generated and this can readily be done by increasing the depth of the grooves or the driven speed of one roll with relation to the other. The heating and cooling effect of this treatment is practically instantaneous so that the corrugations formed in the separator stock maintain the dimensional pattern of the grooved rolls. It has been found that the composite fibre felt stock above described may be readily grooved in widths up to 18" and of course this result occurs whether the corrugations are formed by a single roll or by a series of co-operating rolls.

It has been found that for different batteries it is desirable to supply separator stock in thickness varying from 0.015 to 0.065" and in weight from 10 oz. per square yard to approximately 30 oz. per square yard. For example, corrugated separator stock 0.020" in thickness is particu- 4 larly useful in submarine storage batteries, whereas thicker separators are useful in automotive and industrial storage batteries of the six and twelve volt types.

It will be understood that by coalescence of the thermoplastic fibres I mean the fusion or adhesion of the thermoplastic fibres to each other or to the non-binder fibres in the felt sheet to an extent that unifies the fibres into a sheet having substantial stiffness and resilience and no tendency to unravel at the edges.

It will be noted that one aspect of my invention comprises a novel combination in a lead plate storage battery of the lead plates and sulfuric acid of the battery with felt separator plates comprising thermoplastic fibres which are resistant to the sulfuric acid and cotton fibres which are disintegrated in use by the action of the sulfuric acid, thus increasing the porosity of the separator plates and so offsetting the plugging effect of lead salts deposited thereon Having thus disclosed my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

A battery separator plateof stiff, resilient felt for use in combination with the lead plates and sulfuric acid of a storage battery and comprising approximately 35% thermoplastic Vinyon fibre and 65% cotton fibre mixed and distributed at random in felt formation and weighing approximately 28 oz./sq. yd., the material of the separator being unified by coalescence of the Vinyon fibre and maintained thereby in stiff resilient condition presenting parallel corrugations, the cotton fibre being progressively oxidized and disintegrated in battery use, thus tending to increase the porosity of the separator and offset the filling effect of lead salts deposited thereon.

WILLIAM H. LEHMBERG.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 533,751 Salom Feb. 5, 1895 1,020,149 Marino Mar. 12, 1912 1,744,256 Benner et al. Jan. 21, 1930 1,906,342 Smith May 2, 1933 1,981,736 Martindell Nov. 20, 1934 2,278,896 Rugeley et al. Apr. 7, 1942 2,298,274 Boeddinghaus Oct. 13, 1942 2,306,781 Francis Dec. 29, 1942 2,335,757 Hall Nov. 30, 1943 2,430,868 Francis Nov. 18, 1947 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 30,602 Great Britain Mar. 31, 1911 473,194 Great Britain Oct. 4, 1937 

